CHAPTER 26: "THE PRISONER"

Their “tea party” was a lot calmer and uneventful than Ai expected. He was expecting this to be a sort of quest event with pointers, tasks or lore exploration, but so far nothing had happened yet. Even the owl, who had been tense and quiet when he first entered the castle had slowly relaxed a little bit more and fell asleep as it always did when nothing too eventful happened.

Oceana was an incredibly charming host. She poured him more tea when he ran out, urged him to eat more of the snacks provided and seemed to never run out of conversation topics to pull him into, although he couldn’t come up with a more intellectual answer than the simple agreeing or disagreeing.

With nothing special occurring, he wondered if the invitation was simply an extra detail to get players to know more about the Siren Village, because despite seemingly hating the village, Ai could see that the priestess at least took pride in how their ancestors built the village. She would go into details about the construction, the thought that went into each stone, the colors that were chosen, all random details that really added nothing to the grand scheme of the entire story.

One thing that Ai found was incredibly fascinating was the walls that surrounded the village as well as the mist. Apparently, they were built for one thing and that was to keep harpies out.

Though harpies didn’t have a good relationship with mermaids, their feelings towards them were indifference or dislike at most. Towards the sirens, however, was a completely different story. The two clans were arch nemesis, always trying to one up each other, the Oratorio Race Peace Treaty being the only thing that stopped them from going to war with each other.

The mist and wall were things the sirens built to keep harpies out of their village, preventing them to even fly above it. The mists were to confuse the harpies if they ever wandered in the village. The density of the mist was also capable of slowing down lost or trespassing harpies so they could be captured with ease.

Such a brutal defense mechanism yet Oceana did not even flinch. She calmly explained them in a calm and polite demeanor while sipping her tea. Ai shuddered, thinking that this priestess was much more cold than he thought even though her eyes and smile were incredibly gentle and kind.

After a few back and forths, Ai decided that he would ask a question himself.

“Why did you invite me? I didn’t see the other, um…, travelers getting the letter?”

Looking up from her cup of tea, Oceana gave a vague smile. “Ah, I’ve heard of your wonderful achievement in the elven village and thought that I would very much like to see you in person.”

With a gentle hand, the priestess slowly stirred her tea while she looked at him with her eyes narrowed slightly. Those ocean colored orbs scanned him. From the tips of his white hair to his blue eyes to his shabby low level gear.

“Well, rumors are always so exaggerated.” 

Ai chuckled nervously and stuffed another seashell shaped cookie in his mouth. He moved on with the conversation, sidestepping over the veiled jab over his achievements. Truly, he wasn’t overly offended by the slight condescending tone, though the owl opened his eyes wide and stared at the priestess after she said that. Ai himself didn’t think that what he did in the Pymule was that remarkable. 

In the context of the game’s original plotline, what he did seemed rather miniscule. Though he did end up with a beast companion, which the original plotline didn’t give, his path didn’t impact the Elven village in the slightest.

In the original plot, the player, an amnesiac hero, stumbled on their race village where they discovered that they had a strong affinity with Oratorio’s magic, which in turn gave them their powers or classes. The original beginner quest involved the players battling a mob of monsters which saved their village and opened up the gateway to the main plot surrounding the turmoil of the player’s race kingdom and their main opponent. For example, the main opponent for the elven kingdom would be the fairy kingdom, their main dispute being over land since they were both woodland creatures living on the same type of land.

The difference between his beginner quest and the ones that other player’s got was something that he kept in the back of his mind since mediators could open up different pathways. He guessed now the plot for him had completely derailed from its original setting. All players had different experiences anyway, but his just seemed to have strayed away from the original plot points entirely.

After a few more unremarkable chit chats and all the snacks and tea were completely gone, Ai could finally bid farewell to the priestess and go back to the village. He had hoped to gain slightly more information about the siren named Nebule...

Wait.

Now that he thought about it more, it was extremely odd and suspicious. 

The blue shell pin that had gotten him the formal invitation. Nebule had sent that, not Oceana. So why was the priestess saying that she had been waiting to meet him but didn’t even send him an invite before he decided to go to Oceanus? He only got Oceana’s invite after he showed the blue pin from Nebule, making her statements about wanting to meet him not make sense at all since she wasn’t the one who asked him to come to Oceanus.

Before he could form any sort of question, the door to the room suddenly slammed open so strongly that Ai thought the glass floors were going to crack from it.

A guard stood on the other side of the door, breathing heavily. His eyes scanned the room from behind his helmet, looking for mostly likely the priestess. When he found her, he rushed forward and kneeled in front of her. From his position, Ai could only see the shine of his armor and the nervousness in his voice as he spoke.

“Priestess,” the guard said, almost gasping as he was out of breath. “The harpy prisoner...she managed to escape!”

For a brief moment, Oceana did not respond. She looked calm and collected as she was before. She sipped her tea once more and then, unexpectedly, slammed the tea on the table, the porcelain smashing to bits from it. 

She didn’t look particularly angry, but the coldness in her eyes and the fire in them told Ai that she wasn’t particularly happy either.

The guard didn’t require her to speak to know that he was in trouble. Presumably he’d been the one who was in charge of this harpy prisoner and the situation didn’t bode well for him. Even Ai, who’d only been in the priestess’s presence for a little while could very much feel the cold rage she was emanating.

Without looking at the guard, Oceana spoke in that calm tone she used all the time only now it felt infinitely more menacing and scary. 

“Well?” 

Just one word. Just on word, the guard quickly got up and ran outside towards the door. As he disappeared out into the hallway, Oceana too stood from her seat and gave Ai a smile.

“I do apologize, envoy. It seems that out time has been cut short by an...unfortunate timing. Perhaps next time we can do this again with less...distractions.”

Without waiting for Ai to reply, Oceana had already turned towards the open door and left as well.

She had said next time, but Ai understood that the time they spent that afternoon was not something that was going to be repeated. She had seen him, felt that he was inadequate or simple, then left feeling satisfied with getting a look of him.

He sighed. It was time for him to go back as well. Sadly he had nothing to report back to Nameless since he didn’t get a chance to ask about Nebule at all. Other than his one inquiry about the reason why he was invited to meet Oceana, the priestess really didn’t give him an opportunity to ask anymore questions.

Besides, if Nebule was captured and kept here like Nameless had said, he was pretty sure that asking directly wouldn’t really get him anywhere.

It took him a few missing turns before he managed to reach the exit. The castle’s main section had been extremely confusing to navigate through and he barely remembered the paths that the maid had led him through.

Ai blew out a sigh of relief as he climbed up the stairs and walked through the mosaic doorway once more.

As he stepped through it, a barreling figure slammed into his back from behind causing both of them to fall straight onto the cold white floor. Ai felt his head swirl as it knocked against the hard surface. Groaning, he clutched his forehead as stars began to spin behind his eyes. A pulsing in his head told him that his head had slammed against the floor quite hard. Meanwhile, the owl who had taken flight when Ai fell down circled around him, hooting concerned noises as it did.

While facing the pain, he slowly looked back to see who had caused it.

Expecting a siren, his eyes widened as he stared at the female figure that had slammed into him.

Grey wings with brown tips where hands and arms should’ve been, bird claws as feet, long brown hair, more feathers on the sides of her face and a shabby brown dress that was tattered in some places. She too was groaning as her feathered wings clutched her head.

Wings...bird features….

She was a harpy.